Jump to content

University of California, Los Angeles

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by DanielNuyu (talk | contribs) at 07:49, 15 May 2006 (+1 nat'l (one nat'l not previously incremented)). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

University of California, Los Angeles
UCLA Seal (Trademark of UC Regents)
MottoFiat lux (Let There Be Light)
TypePublic
Established1919
Endowment$1.7 billion
ChancellorAlbert Carnesale
Academic staff
1,453
Undergraduates24,946
Postgraduates11,021 [1].
Location
Westwood, Los Angeles
,
California
CampusUrban, 419 acres (1.7 km²)
MascotBruins
Websitewww.ucla.edu
File:Ucla designlogo.gif
The UCLA logo since July 2004. Its letterforms were inspired by the Bauhaus design movement.

The University of California, Los Angeles, popularly known as UCLA, is a public, coeducational university located in the residential area of Westwood within the city of Los Angeles. Founded in 1919, it is the second-oldest campus in the University of California system and the largest university in terms of enrollment in the state of California.

UCLA's academic programs are highly ranked; most of its Ph.D. programs rank in the top 20 for academic quality in the United States according to the National Research Council. In 2006, U.S. News & World Report ranked the undergraduate division 25th in the United States. The university was also ranked the number one public research university in the nation by the National Science Foundation, and second among all American universities, both public and private[2]. In addition, the university received over 47,000 freshman applications for undergraduate admission in Fall 2006, more than any other university in the United States. The sports teams, which compete as the Bruins, have won 120 national championships and 99 NCAA championships as of 2006—more than any other university. Also in 2006, UCLA completed Campaign UCLA, which collected over $3.05 billion and is currently the most successful fundraising campaign in the history of higher education. One of the world's most ethnically and culturally diverse communities, students come to UCLA from all 50 states and more than 100 foreign countries, though the majority of undergraduates are from California. [3].

History

UCLA campus with downtown Los Angeles to the East.

In March 1881, after heavy lobbying by Los Angeles residents, the California legislature authorized the creation of a second State Normal School in downtown Los Angeles to train teachers for the growing population of Southern California. The State Normal School at Los Angeles opened on August 29, 1882, on what is now the site of the Central Library of the Los Angeles Public Library system. The new facility included an elementary school where teachers-in-training could practice their teaching technique on real children.

In 1914, the school moved to a new campus on Vermont Avenue in Hollywood. In 1917, Director Ernest Carroll Moore suggested that the State Normal School at Los Angeles should be added as the second campus of the University of California. Appropriate legislation was signed into law on May 23, 1919 which turned the school into the Southern Branch of the University of California (SBUC) and added its general undergraduate program, the College of Letters and Science.

In 1927, the school was renamed the "University of California at Los Angeles." The word 'at' was officially replaced by a comma in 1958, in line with other UC campuses. It has since simply been known around the world as "UCLA." Also in 1927, the state broke ground at a new campus on the chaparral-covered hills of a real estate development called Westwood. The first classes on the new 400 acre (1.6 km²) campus were held in 1929 in its four original buildings. In 1933, UCLA was permitted to award the master's degree, and in 1936, the doctorate.

In 1934, upon the death of William Andrews Clark, Jr., UCLA received its first major bequest, and still one of the most generous in its history, the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. The rare books and manuscripts collection includes some of the world's largest collections of English literature, history, and fine printing.

Campus

Royce Hall

The campus currently comprises 163 buildings across 419 acres (1.7 km²) in the western part of Los Angeles, north of the Westwood shopping district and just south of Sunset Boulevard. The campus is close but not adjacent to the San Diego Freeway.

File:UCLA MurphySculptureGarden.jpg
Barbara Hepworth's Elegy III, found in UCLA's Murphy Sculpture Garden

The University campus includes broad green lawns, sculpture gardens and fountains, museums, and a mix of architectural styles. It is located in the residential area of Westwood and bordered by Bel Air, Beverly Hills, and Brentwood. The campus is informally divided into North Campus and South Campus, which are both on the eastern half of the university's land. North Campus is the original campus core, with its buildings being more old-fashioned in appearance and clad in imported Italian brick. North Campus is home to the arts, humanities, social sciences, law, and business programs and is centered around oak tree-lined Dickson Court. South Campus is home to the physical sciences, life sciences, engineering, psychology, mathematical sciences, all health-related fields, and the UCLA Medical Center. The campus is in a constant state of change with multiple construction projects, including new residence areas, teaching and laboratory space, and a new hospital.

Undergraduate housing for nearly 8,000 residents is spread across 14 complexes on a ridge on the western side of the campus called "the Hill." Student life on the Hill is under the care of the Office of Residential Life (ORL). Dining facilities include four restaurants and three boutique-style eateries. Students are currently guaranteed three years of on-campus housing, but the Housing Master Plan aims to guarantee housing to all undergraduates for four years by 2010.

File:Uclapowellsnow1932.JPG
Powell Library, covered in snow, January 15, 1932

In 2002, the university began building Weyburn Terrace, a new graduate housing complex, in order to recruit top graduate students from around the world; there had been no university-operated graduate housing on or near the main campus since 2001. The new complex is located a few blocks from the main UCLA campus on the western edge of Westwood and was completed before the Fall 2005 term. Weyburn Terrace enables UCLA to provide housing to approximately fifty percent of incoming graduate and professional students. It also served as housing for displaced Tulane University law students who visited at UCLA during the Fall semester following Hurricane Katrina.

Kerckhoff Hall

Ackerman Union, the John Wooden Center, the Arthur Ashe Health and Wellness Center, the Student Activities Center, Kerckhoff Hall, the J.D. Morgan Center, the James West Alumni Center, and Pauley Pavilion stand at the center of the campus. The Hill is linked to the remainder of campus by a heavily traveled pathway called Bruin Walk, which bisects the campus. In order to accommodate UCLA's rapidly growing student population, multiple construction and renovation projects are in progress, including expansions of the life sciences and engineering research complexes.

The tallest building on campus is named after Ralph Bunche, an African-American alumnus, who received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating an armistice agreement between the Jews and Arabs in Palestine. A bust of him, on the entrance to Bunche Hall, overlooks the Sculpture Garden. He was the first individual of non-European background and the first UCLA alumnus to be honored with the Prize.

The campus has a large number of parking garages, both above-ground and below-ground. Yet, the university continues to suffer from a severe parking shortage which is further compounded by Southern California's regional housing shortage. The university has given priority in allocation of parking spaces to staff and some students, regardless of living distances. There are many facilities with local buses. There are, in addition, other transportation services that the university provides for its students, such as "rideshares" and vanpools. Also, the popular "BruinGo" program allows students and staff members to use local bus services (such as Santa Monica's "Big Blue Bus") for a reduced fare from numerous terminals located on the campus.

Academics

The Anderson School

UCLA is organized into the following schools and colleges:

The health-related schools, with the UCLA Medical Center and associated research centers, are collectively known as the UCLA Center for Health Sciences. In 2005, UCLA announced its five-year plan to establish the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Medicine; the state of California is rare in its public funding of research with new embryonic stem cell lines. The California NanoSystems Institute is another project that was created out of a partnership with the University of California, Santa Barbara to pioneer innovations in the field of nanotechnology.

Rankings

UCLA has a distinguished academic program; in most surveys, it is invariably ranked among the best institutions of higher education on a national and global scale. Of the 36 Ph.D. programs examined by the National Research Council, UCLA had 31 ranked in the top 20 in terms of overall academic quality, third best in the United States. Twelve departments were ranked in the top 10:

Powell Library
  • Linguistics (3)
  • Psychology (4)
  • Physiology (4)
  • Sociology (5)
  • History (6)
  • Philosophy (6)
  • Geography (8)
  • Political Science (8)
  • Anthropology (8)
  • Chemistry (9)
  • Classics (9)
  • Aerospace Engineering (10)

In 2005, UCLA was ranked 14th in the world and 12th in North America by an annual listing of the Top 500 World Universities published by the Institute of Higher Education in Shanghai, China. In addition, the Washington Monthly ranked UCLA 2nd, based on national service and enrichment, in its 2005 rankings of the Top National Universities. The UCLA Library, which holds over 8 million volumes, ranks among the top 10 in the United States.

File:Powellrotunda.jpg
Inside Powell Library Rotunda

UCLA's oldest operating unit, the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies (GSEIS), was ranked 2nd among American graduate schools of education in the 2006 edition of U.S. News and World Report, America's Best Graduate Schools.

Admissions

UCLA is one of the most selective schools in the nation and, along with UC Berkeley, one of the two most selective schools in the UC system. In 2005, 47,248 prospective freshmen applied to UCLA for entrance in Fall 2006, more than any other university in the United States, and 12,081 applicants were accepted—a 25.6% acceptance rate. The average weighted GPA and SAT score for an admitted freshman was 4.27 and 2,010, respectively. One of the major current debates is over the decreasing admission of African-Americans and Latinos, especially since the passage of Proposition 209 in 1996. Together African-Americans and Latinos make up about 15% of the undergraduate student body. The demographics of the student body are not reflective of that of the city of Los Angeles where the percentage of African-Americans and Latinos is much higher.

Library system

As of 2006, UCLA's library system has over eight million books and 70,000 serials spread over 12 libraries and 11 other archives, reading rooms, and research centers. It is among the ten largest academic library systems in the United States.[4].

Library System Homepage

List of libraries and other campus collections

File:Uclaschooloflawlibrarytower.jpg
Hugh & Hazel Darling Law Library

Athletics

File:UCLA Bruins Logo.png
Official Athletic Logo

The school's sports teams are called the Bruins, with colors "true blue" and gold. The Bruins participate in NCAA Division I-A as part of the Pacific Ten Conference. Two notable sports facilities serve as home venues for UCLA sports. The Bruin football team plays home games at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California; the team won a national title in 1954. The men's and women's basketball and volleyball teams play at Pauley Pavilion on campus.

File:Robinsonucla.jpg
Jackie Robinson, in his days as a Bruin, before integrating major league baseball

The Bruin mascots are Joe and Josephine Bruin, and the fight songs are Sons of Westwood and Mighty Bruins. The alma mater is Hail to the Hills of Westwood.

When Red Sanders came to UCLA to coach football in 1949 he redesigned the uniforms. Sanders added a gold loop on the shoulders—the UCLA Stripe. The navy blue was changed to a lighter shade of blue. Sanders figured that the baby blue would look better on the field and in film. He would dub the baby blue uniform "Powder Keg Blue," powder blue with an explosive kick.

UCLA is competitive in all major Division I-A sports and as of 2005, UCLA has won 120 national championships, including 99 NCAA championships, more than any other university.[5] Among these championships, some of the more notable victories are in men's basketball. Under legendary coach John Wooden, UCLA men's basketball teams won 10 NCAA championships, including a record seven consecutive, in 1964, 1965, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, and 1975, and an 11th was added under then-coach Jim Harrick in 1995. From 1971 to 1974, UCLA men's basketball won an unprecedented 88 consecutive games. Past rosters of UCLA sports teams have been filled with such greats such as Jackie Robinson, Gail Goodrich, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Bill Walton, Baron Davis, Reggie Miller, and Troy Aikman. Most recently, in 2006 UCLA made it to the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament with wins over Gonzaga, Memphis and LSU before losing to the University of Florida Gators, 73-57 in the Championship game.

In regards to UCLA basketball and its high expectations, former UCLA basketball player and current Seattle Supersonics player Earl Watson commented, "Eleven national championships, the best coach to coach the game says a lot [John Wooden]. I take offense to those who act like UCLA is just another school compared to Duke. Duke is a great school in the east, but UCLA is worldwide."

UCLA has also shown dominance in volleyball, with 19 national championships. All 19 teams were led by current coach Al Scates, which ties him with John McDonnell of the University of Arkansas as NCAA leader for national championships in a single sport.

In addition to its basketball and volleyball championships, UCLA has won NCAA Division I championships in the following events:

Men's sports: Football (1), Golf (1), Gymnastics (2), Soccer (4), Swimming (1), Tennis (16), Track & Field (8), Water Polo (8).

Women's sports: Golf (2), Gymnastics (5), Softball (10), Track & Field (5), Volleyball (3), Water Polo (4).

UCLA has medaled in every Olympics they have participated in. In the 2004 Athens games, UCLA sent 56 athletes, more than any other university, who won 19 medals.

UCLA shares a traditional sports rivalry with the nearby University of Southern California. The Lexus Gauntlet is the name given to a competition between UCLA and USC in the 18 varsity sports that both compete in head-to-head; in 2005, UCLA won the Lexus Gauntlet Trophy.

Traditions and events

The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, a two-day book fair held the last weekend of April, is the largest annual gathering of publishers and authors in the country and free to the public.

The UCLA Jazz Reggae Festival gathers musicians from both genres for a two day concert held every year over the Memorial Day weekend. The annual event is planned and predominately staffed by the Cultural Affairs Commission (CAC) of the Undergraduate Students Association Council (USAC),a branch of ASUCLA.

Spring Sing is an annually held show of student talent at the Los Angeles Tennis Center on campus.

The UCLA Dance Marathon is an annual event on campus with hundreds of student dancers committed to raising money and joining together to support the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.

UCLA's official charity is Unicamp which is 72 years old and is a summercamp for lower-income children that is entirely funded and run by volunteers and fundraising.

Filming at UCLA

Countless movies, TV shows, and commercials have been filmed at UCLA. With a location in the Westside of Los Angeles near Hollywood and a world-famous film and television school, the UCLA campus has attracted filming for decades. Also, UCLA's picturesque beauty and East Coast-college feel contributed to choosing UCLA for their location shoot.

In 1983, "Breathless" with Richard Gere was filmed in the Franklin Murphy Sculpture Garden. TV shows like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "X-Files", "Felicity", and "Alias" show college campus scenes. Eddie Murphy in "The Nutty Professor" shows the actor running up the famous Janss Steps. Recent movies include "Van Wilder", "Scream", "First Daughter", "Old School", "Peaceful Warrior", "How High", "Tomcats", "Legally Blonde", "Erin Brockovich".

"UCLA is located in Los Angeles, the same place as the American motion picture industry," said UCLA visiting professor of film and television Jonathan Kuntz. "So we're convenient for (almost) all of the movie companies, TV production companies, commercial companies and so on. We're right where the action is."

Activism

File:IMG 2231.JPG
Royce Hall at night

In 1995, 2001, and 2004, Mother Jones magazine named UCLA in its annual listing of the Top 10 Activist Campuses, reflecting the rallying spirit of its student bodies over the years. The activist tradition of UCLA can be traced to 1934, when Provost Ernest Moore declared UCLA "the worst hotbed of communism in the U.S," and suspended 5 members of the student government for allegedly “using their offices to assist the revolutionary activities of the National Student League, a Communist organization which has bedeviled the University for some months.” Over 3,000 students gathered to protest in Royce Quad, and campus police officers, attempting to silence the speakers, were thrown into some bushes. The crowd dispersed before any arrests were made, and University President Robert Sproul later reinstated the students.[6]

While student activism at UCLA in the 1940s demonstrated support for the Allied effort in World War II, in the 1960s the UCLA campus emerged as a staging area for massive protests against the Vietnam War. The protests at UCLA began in 1967, when over 500 students protested the recruitment of graduates by Dow Chemicals, which produced napalm, an incendiary chemical used in the war. The protests escalated as the war continued.

During the 1969-1970 academic year, various activist organizations were infiltrated by federal agents who provoked conflicts between them. On January 17,1969 UCLA students and Black Panther Party members John Huggins, 23, and Bunchy Carter, 26, were slain in Campbell Hall by members of United Slaves, a rival black power organization headed by Maulana Karenga. Later, it was reported that members of the FBI had infiltrated both groups and exacerbated tensions between them as part of the COINTELPRO program.

Later in 1969, the UC regents fired Angela Davis, a radical feminist and lecturer in the Philosophy Department, for openly identifying as a member of the Communist Party. Outraged faculty threatened to withhold grades if Davis was not reinstated, and nearly 2,000 students crammed into Royce Hall's auditorium when Davis delivered her first lecture despite the regents' decision to remove credit for the class. The overflowing audience gave the 25-year-old professor a standing ovation. On October 22, Vice Chancellor Charles E. Young complied with a state superior court order overruling the regents' decision by restoring course credit to Davis's class. Eight months later, the regents again dismissed Davis from the UCLA faculty.[7]

On May 5,1970 students protesting the Kent State shootings marched through campus and vandalized several buildings, including an ROTC building. A fire caused $5,000 worth of damage, destroying part of Murphy Hall. Chancellor Young declared a State of Emergency and summoned the LAPD on campus; 74 arrests were made and 12 people reported injuries. This demonstration and many others at UC campuses throughout the state caused then-Governor Ronald Reagan to shut down the state's colleges and universities for the first time in California's history.

Campus political debate in the 1980s centered primarily on the South African government's apartheid policies, the U.S.'s Central American policy, as well as the implementation of affirmative action in the state. In the 1990s, student activists tended to focus on university and statewide concerns, such as union recognition for graduate teaching assistants, the expansion of the Chicano/a Studies Center, Proposition 187, which denied social services to undocumented immigrants, and Proposition 209, which ended affirmative action in California. However, in 1991 there were also sizable protests--including a student occupation of Murphy Hall--against Gulf War I.

More recently, conservatives on campus have initiated prominent political actions. The Bruin Republicans held the first affirmative action bake sale protesting racial preferences in 2003, a practice which has been copied by other conservative student groups at universities across the country. In 2006, Andrew Jones, former Bruin Republican president and Daily Bruin columnist, created a website under the guise "Bruin Alumni Association" to expose the "Dirty Thirty" most liberal professors at UCLA. Controversy developed over Jones' offer of monetary compensation for students who recorded the lectures of left-wing faculty members for later exposure on his site.

File:P4241010.jpg
Bustling Kerckhoff Patio

Other recent activism on campus includes a movement since 2004 to pressure the University of California Regents to divest in Sudan because of the genocide in the Darfur region where some 400,000 people have died. In March 2006 the Regents voted to divest becoming the largest university system yet to divest in Sudan. Students groups such as the Darfur Action Committee hosted demonstrations such as "Die-ins" where students laid down on the sidewalks as if dead, and staged a Refugee Camp.

UCLA, ARPANET, and the Internet

ARPANET, the world's first electronic computer network, was established on October 29, 1969 between nodes at Leonard Kleinrock's lab at UCLA and Douglas Engelbart's lab at Stanford Research Institute, in Menlo Park, CA. Interface Message Processors at both sites served as the backbone of the first Internet.[8] In addition to SRI and UCLA, UCSB, and the University of Utah were part of the original four network nodes. By December 5, 1969, the entire 4-node network was connected.

Turing Award laureate, Vinton Cerf, was a doctoral student in the computer science department under Kleinrock in early 1970s and also worked on the ARPANET. He would later team with Bob Kahn in the writing of the seminal 1974 paper A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication. This work proved foundational for their later development of the Transmission Control Protocol - TCP/IP protocol.

In 1988, Kleinrock also chaired a group which produced the report Toward a National Research Network. [9] This report was presented to Congress and was so influential on then-Senator Al Gore that it proved to be the foundation for what would be passed as the High Performance Computing Act of 1991, written and developed by Gore.[10] This act would prove pivotal towards the development of the Internet during the 1990s; in particular it led to the development of the MOSAIC web browser, which was funded by the High-Performance Computing and Communications Initiative, a program created by the High Performance Computing Act of 1991.

On January 11,1994, then-Vice-President Al Gore further articulated the goals of the Clinton administration in the development of the "Information Superhighway" at UCLA's Royce Hall.[11] In 2001, Gore would also later join the faculty of UCLA as a visiting professor in the School of Public Policy and Social Research, Department of Policy Studies, family-centered community building.

Peripheral enterprises

UCLA Healthcare

The UCLA Medical Center is actually part of a larger healthcare system, UCLA Healthcare, which also operates a hospital in Santa Monica and seven primary care clinics throughout Los Angeles County. In addition, the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine uses two Los Angeles County hospitals as teaching hospitals: Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and Olive View-UCLA Medical Center.

In 1981, the UCLA Medical Center made history when an assistant professor named Michael Gottlieb first diagnosed an unknown affliction later to be called AIDS. As of 2005, U.S. News and World Report has ranked UCLA Medical Center as the best hospital in the Western United States for 16 consecutive years, and placed it among its honor roll of best hospitals in the United States.[12]

UCLA Housing and Hospitality Services

UCLA offers a wide array of wonderful housing opportunities. The campus residence halls include Hedrick Hall, De Neve Commons, Reiber Hall, Hitch Suites, Dykstra Hall, Courtside, and Sproul Hall. Besides operating the usual dormitories and apartment buildings, UCLA also runs a small, full-service, on-campus hotel, the UCLA Guest House, and a full-service conference center, the UCLA Conference Center, in the San Bernardino Mountains near Lake Arrowhead. This is a peripheral enterprise as UCLA does not have a hotel management program.

UCLA Trademarks and Licensing

The UCLA name also doubles as an overseas clothing and accessories brand; in certain Asian countries, it is considered fashionable to adorn oneself with the UCLA brand name. This trend may arise from the school's academic reputation and popular images of the Southern California lifestyle, emphasizing freedom in a land of perpetual sunshine. High demand for UCLA apparel has inspired the licensing of its trademark to UCLA brand stores throughout East Asia.[13] In 1980, it was noted that more UCLA clothing merchandise was sold in Japan annually than in the school's own Student Union store on campus.

Notable alumni and faculty

Notes

  1. ^ Campus Profile. UCLA Admissions. Accessed May 13, 2006.
  2. ^ NSF ranks UCLA as a top research university. Bizjournals: Los Angeles Business. Accessed May 9, 2006.
  3. ^ http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/campusprofile.htm.
  4. ^ The Largest Libraries in the U.S.. Infoplease. Accessed September 1, 2005.
  5. ^ UCLA championships. Official athletic site. Accessed May 8, 2006.
  6. ^ Communists on Campus (Part 1 of 3). UCLA Alumni Association. Accessed March 20, 2006.
  7. ^ Communists on Campus (Part 3 of 3). UCLA Alumni Association. Accessed March 20, 2006.
  8. ^ Internet Began 35 Years Ago at UCLA. News: Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. Accessed October 30, 2004.
  9. ^ Toward a National Research Network (1988). The National Academic Press. Accessed March 20, 2006.
  10. ^ A bill...to ensure continued United States leadership in high-performance computing. MIT Web archive. Accessed March 20, 2006.
  11. ^ Archive Index 1994, January 13, 1994: Vol. 14, No. 9. UCLA Today. Accessed March 20, 2006.
  12. ^ America’s Best Hospitals 2005. U.S. News & World Report. Accessed March 20, 2006.
  13. ^ UCLA name, L.A. lifestyle marketable overseas. Daily Bruin Accessed May 13, 2005.

Eateries

Student life

  • MyUCLA (A web portal with courses, webmail, notices, calendar, and other features)
  • BruinWalk (Student-run web portal that features professor reviews)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=University_of_California,_Los_Angeles&oldid=53280761"